Monday, August 04, 2008

Whoops! I've been busy with the model horses and other stuff and not blogging, again!

I have remembered to draw something every once in a while!

Excelsior arrived this week from Kim Ford Hoffman in Tennessee. He's a Breyer Mini Whinny Stock horse who's been repainted as a Leopard Appaloosa with peacock spots (they have a slight halo around them). This little gelding is only 1 inch tall and packed with details!! I'm in love with him already! Look at that face! There are also loads of photos of him if you click on the journal page to go to my Flickr! This sketch of him was done in pencil first (I wanted him to look like him!) and then inked and painted, except that I got impatient with my ink and smeared it erasing the pencil lines on his croup...silly mom! He has a wee parade saddle Kim started and I'm to finish, so you may see bits of that here or on my other blog, Beneath The Mothertree.

Last week, we spent some of the cool weather playing outside. One day, after viewing the ArtsKC exhibit, art/work, Creativity from the Cube (which includes the works of several of my husband's coworkers and bosses) inside Union Station, we went out in front, the kids wanted to play on the large bronze plaques commemorating the restoration of the building. They are raised slightly on granite risers and at an angle that is fun to walk on and jump off of and not dangerously high. They played nicely enough for me to capture lots of the scene in front of me, the Bloch fountain on Pershing, the Liberty Memorial and it's parkway, the trees lining Main Street, an office building (an Advertising agency, I believe), and the old Channel 5 tower, now used by KCTV, the public television station.

Washington’s horses included Arabian, Andalusian, and Chincoteague ponies, but, since few formal breeds were established in colonial times, most were noted in records simply as “plow horse,” or “carriage horse.”

A little less time to draw inside, two days before. because the kidlets decided they needed to do all the dangerous things they weren't supposed to do while I tried to draw the chandeliers in the main hall at Union Station. Some days are just like that!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I like coffee and tea. I tried Mom's cup when I was young and found just the right ratios of sugar, milk, creamer and honey to make each kind palatable and enjoyable. This week I wandered into a shop that sells Chinese teas. The owner let me have some samples and told me what kinds they were and where they were grown. The next day I went back and bought some. This is White Peony King whole leaf tea--without sugar, cream, milk or honey! The cup's a bone china with a wheat stalk design on the other side (not sure why the cup was turned backwards, I'm right-handed mostly) and very shiny. We found a set of four at our old recycling center. They had a table for "treasures" that we donated to and found new additions at. Better than a garage sale!

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

We leave for Ramsey, Minnesota in the morning. It's the third Welte Family Reunion since 2002 at Uncle Carroll's house. I bet Aunt Fran cringed at the thought of 100+ people & kids trampling her yard and carpets again...we're not that bad, really! Everyone pitches in to help with dishes and meals and cleans up after ourselves. Donations to cover expenses get taken and everyone loves her house! She has a huge yard and woods and a lovely house with a park and playground across the street. There's a links-style public golf course that Ron likes to have a round at during the weekend (I would, too, if I'd get off my butt and get to the driving range once in a while. The kids'd love driving and putting!). We won't get to go visit Midwest, the big Arabian horse farm across the way, they'll be at their family reunion, too, this weekend, but they were sorry they'd miss us! I have my fingers crossed that Sunday we can go to St Paul and be-bop around a bit. Wet Paint is open 12-5 and not too far from Como Park. We won't go to the zoo this time, but will go to the Lock and Dam on the Mississippi River near the old Ford Plant. Ron had gone there to work on the conveyer some years ago and I went up to visit and watched boats locking through there. The kids'll love that! Also, we'll try to get to Ft Snelling and the park along the river near there. We'll try to see what else is close. As much as I would love to, I know I won't be able to "schedule" a time to meet with Roz, if she should be available. Time has to be flexible around the kids and the DH (who's very unpredictable whims can throw off a whole weekend!).

So, the glasses. I'll be 43 this year. About 2 months ago, I noticed that I couldn't focus on things closer than 12-14 inches from my eyes. So, I had these glasses from when I had eyestrain issues at work and school. They get used a lot, but they are just a touch too weak for me now. When we get back from our trip, I'll get the eye exam done.

Monday, June 30, 2008

As a reply to a thread on Everyday Matters, I said that I stink at drawing people, so I'd end up drawing things around my Aunt's house next weekend at the Reunion. Well, Ms Kate set me in my place about that! I went back through the sketches of my kids and did one of my Cub last night. I don't stink, I just need more practice!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The kids and I set out yesterday at midday and pointed the car toward Ward Parkway. I got to the Plaza and turned to go through and the kids said they wanted to go to the Cancer Survivors Park on the Western edge of the shopping district. The kids played a bit, letting me draw the view from my bench of the sculpture and the new building across the street. We moved up the park to the front and it's new sculpture, a symbolic flame of hope. I'll get a photo of it to get the colors in it. It's really beautiful!

I didn't get to sketch this one as long, little attention spans grow shorter, so I'll add color another day. I did manage a quick 'nother sketch of the kidlets checkin' out the acoustical properties of the parking garage that abutted the park!

We wandered into the Unity Temple on the Plaza, a church in the Beaux Arts (or is it Arts & Crafts?) style that I had attended once upon a time with my mother. On around the corner, I took them into the McDonald's in the lower level of Seville Square and showed them the Bas Relief Mural of Seville Spain that my husband helped design while he worked for Art Works in Chillicothe. I have an original ink on illustration board scale model of the final piece that he drew that I plan to frame when we get into a bigger place.

Home for some rest and refreshment as the temperature climbed to about 85, then off to meet Daddy at Union Station for ice cream after work! Some wriggly squiggles later, we headed out to Washington Park to run some outside and watch trains. I worked on my perspective with the balustrade and park lamps. Home, exhausted and sleepy!!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Really! I did this today while the kids were playing at the Loose Park Spray Park. The sun came out right after we were done with our other adventures and warmed the day up just enough for them to enjoy the water and me to enjoy drawing without sweating too much! There was a red tail circling, scribbled him in, too.

Over previous weeks, I did a few sketches here and there. The sketchbook's full and I need to make another, but have other things demanding my attention. I committed to spending less time on the computer and more time with kids' activities, so we're doing stuff together, more than we used to. Last week, we enlarged our model horse stable. I built box stalls out of foam board and the kids each have room for over 100 small models now. This week, Rianna and I are making leather halters for our larger models. She's seeing how they are constructed and learning to handle glues, wire, and a craft knife.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Poor Gisa! This is the worst drawing of a horse I've ever done!! I'm posting her anyway...to remind myself, it can only get better!! She's a wee thing, an inch at the withers, and the tiny Native Show halter I made is extra-tiny! The headstall is a four-strand braid and the throatlatch is three strands, braided into the four at the poll, of cotton embroidery floss. So is the lead rope.

My eyes are normal, middle-aged and not as good as they used to be for close work like this, so, yes, I used a magnifying lamp and reading glasses for the details. The braiding - I have an idea that people think I braid tiny, short lengths of floss. That would be daunting...even to me! No, I use about 14-18 inch lengths, folded in half, and braid about half of it. I tie a knot at the end of the braid, so I can lengthen it if I want, and can make lots of halters out of one four-strand braided piece. I didn't learn to do the four-strand flat braid this small...I started with crochet cotton, just a little meatier and I have gobs of it. I got good with that, nice and even, then went smaller. So, with learning a new braid and scaling it down and trials...this took about 6 months to make, off and on.

I'm still tweaking it, though. The tiny "jewels" are Balger blending filament French knots and one is pulling out already (I gave it to Rianna on Tuesday last week), so some Super Glue Gel is in order for those and the tassle knots. Halter number two will take about a day, using the pre-braided floss.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

This was all I got to draw yesterday, having sliced a thumb open fixing my daughter's bike (it's minor and the bike got fixed!) and witnessing her riding without training wheels for the first time!!! While my DH was helping her, my son needed my help with the monkey bars and they both made lots of progress in playground skills! She fell, of course, and skinned a knee and bruised her little self. We got home and iced and cleaned and stung and kissed and had celebratory cheesecake!BTW, this is the only time I've ever changed the date on a post. I'm posting a drawing a day in May and wanted the drawing on the date I made it...such as it is!!

Saturday, May 03, 2008

One of our Stablemate foals. The horse racing world lost another filly today. Eight Belles broke down after finishing second in the Kentucky Derby. She had broken both of her front ankles and was put down on the track. We are all deeply saddened by the recent deaths there and at the Rolex Three Day Event last weekend.

Friday, May 02, 2008

I'm jumping on the Everyday in May bandwagon, drawing something everyday this month. A bench and a Black Locust tree getting it's new leaves at my son's school in Noodler's Lexington Grey ink and Prismacolor & Graphitint watercolor pencils in my sketchbook.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Geordan's class went on a field trip to the Nelson today and had a workshop in Shapes. They went around the Modern art galleries and identified different shapes in artworks and went back to the classroom to make their own collages with shapes and colors. I tagged along and sketched while I waited and along the way. After they went back to school, I went back down the ramp to the Noguchi sculpture garden and worked on one of the sculptures a bit more.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Rianna was home sick yesterday, but it was too nice to stay in. We went to the Anita Goreman Discovery Center (MoDNR) and did some field sketching. We took Cathy Johnson's Sketching in Nature and looked at some journal pages she did, the details she included and notes, and did our own. I painted mine at home.

Fremont's Leather Flower is a Missouri Native, preferring dolomite glades where it blooms in the spring. The leaves last through Fall, when they become filigree ornaments gracing the Autumnal splendor.

Rianna's sketchbook page from yesterday:

"I was out drawing with mom and saw this Flower. I think its fun to darw. It is very prity and a Bug was on a leaf. Ther was tow of them."

She really tried hard to draw what she saw and get some identifying features included, we had talked about doing that before we started. We also worked on not disturbing each other and using the available time (while Mom was still drawing!) to fill in more and more detail.

I did as much of the pencil detail as I could and we ran back inside the center, worried that the rain would catch us (boy, the clouds sure were threatening-looking!). In the bookstore, we found some infor about the flower. We also found Peterson First Guides: Butterflies and Moths and Don Kurz' Trees of Missouri Field Guide that really wanted to come home with us...so they did!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Lamy Safari has been one of the be-all-end-all writing tools of Moleskine fanatics next to the Pilot G2 pens. Loaded up with a bulletproof Noodler's ink in a converter, they are a pleasure to draw with on smooth papers. Once the ink is dry, it can be painted over with my watercolor pencils or paints without smearing. To date, I have 3 pens. The Vista, pictured here, loaded with Noodler's Lexington Grey with an Extra Fine nib, produces a fine enough line without being heavily dark, but still neutral enough to work with many other colors. My Charcoal Safari, also sporting an Extra Fine nib, is loaded with Noodler's Eternal Black, mostly used for writing, though some subjects beg to be drawn in stark black. The third Extra Fine Safari is Blue, filled with Lamy's blue ink. It's water soluable; a property I love to expoit and use. I'll use a water brush to wash a sky or set a background for more blue linework. I smell garage sale season, may have to look for hidden treasures this summer...

Friday, April 11, 2008

Popcorn is a tradition in our family (the Weltes). Dad would make some in the cast iron skillet almost every night and we would eat it out of round cake pans with salt (no butter at home). Sometimes we would lie on the floor with the pan on our bellies watching TV. We don't eat it that often now, but it's a favorite still and is featured at every Welte reunion. This is some Topsy's Old Fashioned popcorn from Crown Center. I like it ok, but it's missing that frying pan taste.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

It's thunderstorm and tornado season here. Towering, anvil-topped Cumulus clouds have been moving through all day, dropping rain, off and on. Tornados almost never make it this far into the city--but it's possible--so the kids and I talked about what we should do and where to go--in case.

Monday, April 07, 2008

A local Peregrine enjoying breakfast on the utility pole in front of our building. He stoops down, pulls up, over and over. We see them, once in a while, riding thermals like California hangliders and diving after prey like F-16s. Good morning.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Built in 1921-1923 and designed by Ernest O Bronstrom. It's at 525 E Armour Boulevard at the North end of Hyde Park, one of the most affluent areas of Kansas City in the 1920s. The style is called "Sullivanesque" after Chicago Architect Louis Sullivan, mentor of Frank Lloyd Wright, and is characterized by the profuse ornamentation and visual division of the vertical towers into zones. Originally two separate towers sporting 6-foot terra cotta peacocks over the doorways, the "unfortunate birds" scared patrons and were removed, one taken by Bronstrom for his garden. The central, barrel-vaulted connection and new doorway (that I drew) was added in 1925. The apartment-hotel is listed on the Missouri and National Historic Building Registers. The entrance is grey limestone with terra cotta ornamentation, framed by two wrought-iron and stained-glass lamps.

More information is available on this site: www.newbernapartments.com/history.htm

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Geordan's home sick with a fever. Nothing hurts and his breathing's fine, he just feels puny and has a 102 temperature. We went to Wal-mart and got an air pump for the bikes. He's happily riding around and around.

Geordan's closer to leaving the training wheels behind, Rianna will take lots of coaxing, cajoling and tears to give them up! I think the key will be peer pressure-her best friend rode by on her bike a couple weeks ago-without training wheels!!

This year, Bicycle Moto-cross (BMX) will make it's debut as an Olympic medal event. The kids will love watching that! NPR interviewed the two girls on the team.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

The stair goes up to an area with mounted birds-the most common in our area-and a microphone to listen to bird calls on. At the foot of the tree is a cave area with stalagtites and stalagmites, crystals and spelunking gear and a bat call area. It opens to the dig site at the Dino Lab where a real Paleontologist is working on the fossilized bones of a Camarasaurus he found in Montana (I'm pretty sure). You can watch him and another guy freeing the fossils from rock and see the field jackets they were transported and stored in (plaster and toilet paper coccoons for the fossils and surrounding rock so nothing gets lost or damaged). I was sitting up a hallway from the tree, by the playground where my kids were busy climbing the jungle gym and making soap bubbles. We have a Family Membership to Union Station, our second year, and will spend lots of time here on hot days! During the World-wide Sketchcrawl. At Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

(Hail) is the whitest of grains,it comes from high in heavenshowers of wind hurl it,then it turns to water.-Old English Rune Poem

Chestnut Graphitint and Noodler's Eternal Black ink on Stonehenge paper, the rune was drawn with a C-1 Speedball pen point dipped in clear water.

Germanic/Norse Runes are something I've studied, off and on, for a number of years. It's a way for me to connect with my German heritage in a way that meshes with my spiritual practices. I had the idea to try to use the watercolor pencils in a way to illustrate the symbols, reminiscent of illuminated initials in Gothic texts. Still playing with them, this will be a bit of a journey and I'll do lots of exploring along the way. I noticed on NaBloPoMo that April's theme is letters, prompting my return to studying some of the more ancient European letterforms in a new way. This particular rune marks the beginning of my journey.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

This is the first "real" journal page in this book! I have a new pen and am really enjoying it. I'm trying to watch Elizabeth, the Golden Age before it expires (on pay-per-view) today. The Cub's playing on the floor in front of me with his Mini Whinnies and Star Wars and Transformers Pocket Models. I like being able to do this! I may keep using Lamy ink in this pen-maybe not blue, I'll see what's available. I plan to buy a second one, anyway, to keep another color in. One for grey waterproof Noodler's ink, the other for soluable Lamy ink. What color? Something to ruminate on for a few weeks! I'm also able to lift the ink with my waterbrush and a tissue, nice! More to spend my allowance on! We got the new MW Drafter set last night, too. They're carrying Breyers at Zoom again! It's been about 10 years, or so.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Not that anyone ever needs an excuse for more art tools, but I got these to satisfy my traveling-with-masking-stuff need. I also read and got started on the first exercise in Lesson 3, trying out different ways to draw/paint surf and waves.

Off for a hike along Indian Creek with the kids...there's a waterfall at Jasper's!

Saturday, March 08, 2008

I'm sitting here with my morning coffee, as I did 2 days ago when I made this photograph, staring at the same page in Kate's book. It's the second page of Lesson 3 on water, sky & clouds. I'm thinking about why I'm not keeping my attention and energy in the lessons and off making the book. When I pick it up, I read "I wanted to maintain lacy foliage effects in the distant trees, as well as a lighter trunk here and there, so I used a bit of liquid mask to protect those areas, applied with an old bamboo pen." Then I stop. My brain says, "liquid mask, bamboo pen, how can I make those really portable? that's a necessary thing, i must solve this now." And off I go to the internet and look up all the art supply stores' sites for masking supplies and think about screw-top containers versus snap-top containers spilling in my backpack and how can I get the really fine lines I need to make with a bamboo pen versus a synthetic brush dipped in soapy water first to keep the mask from gumming up the brush and all the things I would have to take in my backpack to paint at the park and how I can make it so I can throw it in the pack quickly to keep up with the kids or run from rain.

And I don't get the lesson read.And I don't paint.

Hopefully, this self-examination will clear up the matter enough, this morning, for me to actually get further than that sentence once I post this entry...we'll see!

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Watercolor pencil on cold press paper. It's a little bigger than the last two were, it's 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches. I was just supposed to do a simple flower or piece of fruit to get some feel for watercolor pencils...but couldn't pass this up. I took the photo at Powell Gardens last year during Cynthia Padilla's Botanical Still Life class. It was fun to try different techniques; lifting color from the pencils with a wet brush, dry points on wet paper and blending in layers. I like them! I'd like to pare my palette down to something portable, like most of us are in Kate Johnson's Watercolor Pencil Magic online class, and I want to get some of the F-C Albrect Durer pencils, too. They are very portable and it was neat to do the doorway and come home and wet it and detail it later last week.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

at Rockhurst College, a Jesuit school in Kansas City, MO. We were there for a Girl Scout function and I had a little time after helping with the sack lunches (I bagged turkey sandwiches, PB&Js & cleaned up), so I got out the Graphitint watercolor pencils and my trusty sketchbook! I did this so quickly! Some details I had to do from memory or make up... the reflection in the doors, the texture of the stones...the bush wasn't there, and I know I should have been able to see into the door a bit..and wet the whole thing at home tonight. Not an assignment for my class either, but we were working on rocks and trees in Lesson 2 last week.